


rise up from under these stars

by procrastinatingbird



Series: The Amazons of Themyscira [4]
Category: Wonder Woman (2017)
Genre: Gen, Hunters of Artemis, Sister-Sister Relationship, and Greek mythology, and character backstory, in which the writer fudges with canon, its all good fun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-15 00:30:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11794677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/procrastinatingbird/pseuds/procrastinatingbird
Summary: The moon and sun may rise and set but their cycle never ceases. The same is true of the gods.The stories of Artemis and Orana.Plot kicks off here, so reading the first few chapters is recommended.





	1. whisper your name to the cold quiet moon

**Author's Note:**

> In this fic you'll find the writer fudging around with scraps of canon, greek mythology and random headcannons. Enjoy!

She was not always known as Artemis. That was the name given to her from the lips of a dying goddess. But history erases such legends and myths with time, and few remember who she truly was.

Her name was Lyris. She was born long before Hippolyta and her Amazons, born long before the pantheon of gods rose, born to Oceanus himself, one among three-thousand children. Her childhood was spent playing with her sisters in the oceans and rivers of the world. They were young and untouchable, and the lives of mortals meant little to them.

The gods were born, millennia flew by, but she and her sisters were the children of Oceanus and little concerned them save the ever-changing tides. 

When Lyris was nine years old, at least in appearance, the godling Artemis was born and requested the hunters. Sixty sisters, Lyris among them, were to follow this new upstart child-god. The gods matured strangely, and some remained children for hundreds of years, while others grew to adulthood in mere days. When Lyris first stood before Artemis, she found herself standing nearly a foot above the child-god, despite hardly being close to adulthood herself. 

“You seem unimpressed.” The child-god spoke in a manner that seemed far more mature than one might have anticipated, given her youthful appearance. She appeared to be no older than five, perhaps even younger, yet if Lyris looked closely into her eyes, she could glimpse the same sort of ageless wisdom all gods seemed to possess. 

“You seem very short for a god.” Perhaps not the most eloquent of responses, but, looking back, they had all been children at the time.

Artemis smiled ruefully. “I will grow. But not yet. You have spent a long time in childhood as well it seems.”

“Adulthood is rather unappealing when you have had a millennia to learn the difference between a child and an adult.”

Artemis nodded thoughtfully. “You know that if you and your sisters join me, you will revoke much of your father’s patronage.”

“But we will fall under yours instead.”

“Yes. But you cannot stay children much longer. Young woman, perhaps, but I am to be the goddess of the hunt. It has been decreed by the Fates themselves. I do not want children to follow me on my journeys; I am hardly the goddess of motherhood. I want sisters.”

Lyris fixed the godling with a stony stare. “Then earn our sisterhood.”

Artemis gave a solemn nod. “I plan to.”  
____________________________________________________________

Lyris and her sisters had spent their childhood playing in singing streams and rushing rivers. Now, they grew alongside a goddess, running fleet-footed through moon-lit forests in pursuit of their prey, wielding bows and arrows like extensions of their own bodies.

Eternal childhood fades away, and slowly, Lyris notices that her sisters and her goddess grow together. No longer are they a group of rag-tag forest children. They are young women, fierce, deadly, and unstoppable. No longer are their hunts restricted to deer and the minor creatures of the forest. They hunt beasts the size of mountains, monsters that have escaped the depths of Tartarus. There are boars that trample entire villages, bears so big they blot out the sun, and giants who think themselves gods. The Hunters slay them all, moving with a swiftness and grace reminiscence of a flock of birds; untouchable, unstoppable and utterly of one heart and mind. 

There are worse monsters than those with more teeth and claws than Lyris can count. Man commits worse crimes than nature could ever imagine, and the Hunters begin hunting the monsters man creates. A man raises a fist to his own child, his own wife, his own brother. Lyris puts an arrow in his throat. But there are some monsters that will never stay dead.

“Zeus has created others in our image.” Artemis announces one day. “He calls them the Amazons.”

“To protect Man?” There is a scoff from the back of the ranks of Hunters. Lyris can recognize the voice as that of Orana. “The world would be better off without them.”

“Zeus believes Man can be swayed to good.” Artemis answers carefully, in the typical fashion of the gods, avoiding choosing a clear side. “He believes the Amazons are the answer.”

Lyris looks around the ranks of the Hunters, meeting the eyes of woman who they saved from men, who they taught how to fight, and how to kill those who wronged them. She doubts Man will be so easily swayed. 

“Does it matter?” Lyris calls out. “We do not concern ourselves with men. Your domain is that of the untamed and untouched wilds, and we call ourselves the protectors of young girls and women. Men have no place among our concerns, save for when we find them at the end of our arrows.”

Artemis’s eyes seem to contain a glimmer of pride. “Well said, Lyris. Let us leave Man to the Amazons. If they are anything like us, they will have the strength to succeed in their mission.”

Lyris was never sure if her goddess had been right or wrong with that statement. They did not follow the Amazon’s endeavors closely, for there were always monsters to hunt and slay and Man was only one among them. They do know when Man betrays the Amazons. The very heavens shock with the fury of Zeus, and Artemis, protector of woman, seemed more like a vengeful goddess than the sister the Hunters know. She leaves them, one stormy night, to go to Olympus, to receive her orders from Zeus. 

The Hunters are left to find shelter from the pouring rain, whispering rumors and fears to each other in the dark. 

Lyris has always been the most attuned to Artemis. Late at night, the rain pouring so hard she can barely see her hand in front of her face, she feels something, a gut-instinct. Perhaps it was the moonlight, peeking out for a sliver of an instance from behind stormy clouds, or perhaps it was the unease that suddenly permeated the forest. Whatever it is, Lyris swiftly and quietly leaves the camp, following her gut through the storm drenched woods. Lightning flashes, and she sees a silhouette, hunched over on a rotting log.

“Artemis?” 

The goddess remains a statue. Lyris warily treads closer, moving with the soft, silent gait of a hunter who does not wish to startle her prey. She has nearly reached the log when the goddess finally speaks.

“Zeus plans to lead the gods to the Amazon’s defense. He knows they are already planning a rebellion in a few days’ time. He would bring the fury of the gods down upon the men who enslaved them.”

Lyris hesitates. “Do you not agree with this plan?”

“I do.”

“Then why do you sit in the forest and sulk?” Few would dare to speak to a god in such a manner but the huntresses had never worshiped Artemis the way the other gods were often revered. 

The goddess whips her head around, lightning flashing in her eyes and Lyris unconsciously takes a step backwards. Too often she forgets that Artemis is not just her sister, but a powerful god in her own right. She’s seen the bodies of the men who have wronged the goddess and she’d prefer not to leave this world as a smear on the forest floor.

“Something is amiss. I told the gods so, but no one will believe the child-goddess when she claims a greater war is brewing without evidence. I have hunted for millennia and I know when I am the hunter and when I am the one being hunted. Betrayal is thick in the air on that cursed mountain, but no one seems to sense it but me.” 

Lyris cautiously approaches the goddess and sits next to her on the rotting log. The air between them crackles with the rage of a scorned deity. 

“They are fools not to listen to a seasoned hunter such as you.” She finally says, after a long moment of silence. “But the huntresses trust you, sister, and we will guard your back in the coming battle.”

“Thank you.” Artemis murmurs. Lyris thinks there is a deeper emotion there that she cannot quite grasp, but she lets it go. The huntresses must be prepared for the coming battle.  
____________________________________________________________

Artemis will always remember the day Lyris died. The Amazons, as it turned out, needed little help from the gods in their rebellion, their fury seeming to ignite the very air, war-cries and screams of fury sending fear shooting through the hearts of their captors, many men choosing to drop their weapons and flee rather than face this vengeful army. The Hunters joined the slaughter as well and two sisterhoods fought as though they had always guarded each other’s backs. 

The Amazons already knew what it was like to lose sisters, Lyris can see it in their eyes. But they did not know what it was to lose a goddess.

The gods fight on the physical plane ripping through the energies of the world, rather than moving with them. Lyris catches flashes of lightning bolts, entire platoons of men ripped from the earth and thrown to the sky, and Artemis’s arrows flashing through the air like shooting stars.

It is with one sword stroke that Lyris sees Artemis has been right all along. The god Apollo falls and it is traitorous Ares that dealt the blow; the god’s eyes burn with the savage fire of war, and Lyris sees no trace of regret. 

Artemis screams with fury as her brother falls and rushes the god of war. Lyris knows what is to happen moments before it does. It is the final charge of the boar before the spear finds its way to its eye, the last, desperate fight of the fleeing stag before the final arrow leaves the bow. 

The goddess Artemis falls and Lyris hears the screams from her sisters. Ares is already moving to the next god, the next victim, and Lyris rushes to her goddess’s side. She gazes into eyes already fading from this world, holds her sisters hand as her life fades, and tells her, voice shaking; “We will not let you go unavenged. Rest easy.”

The goddess’s eyes go hard and then dull and empty and Lyris feels the goddess’s power seep away from this world, seep away from the Hunters. It is like a cool night breeze, silver moonlight seeping away from a cooling body, seeping out of the bodies of the Hunters it once protected, a thousand years of sisterhood felled by a traitorous god.

The huntress that lives is left holding the body of a sister she loved as much as she did those of her own blood, and in her eyes burns a fury that sends the soldiers around her running.

The Amazons will tell stories of this day. They will say the huntress missed not a single target, that the men around her fell in seconds, arrows to their throats, to their heads, to their chests. They will say the Hunters moved as one, like a river that has burst from its banks, broiling with rage. They will say the Hunters left none of the soldiers in their path standing, that some even dared to challenge the God of War himself, throwing their lives away for the smallest chance of vengeance.  
When the battle had ended, corpses cooling below the feet of those who survived, Amazon and Hunter stood together on the bloody battlefield, and the Queen of the Amazons approached the Hunters and asked who spoke for them. The huntress stepped forth and said that she did. She gave no name, no rank, no title. But the Hunters closed ranks behind her, and there could be no doubt of her authority.

When the Queen pressed for answers, the huntress gave them the name Artemis. The Queen concealed her shock, but gazing into the eyes of those who stood behind the huntress, she could find no doubt there.

There are no Hunters without the Goddess of the Hunt. Lyris died, Artemis died, and yet Artemis lived as well.

The Amazons sail to Themyscira with their new sisters, and the whole way, when the huntress sleeps, she dreams of killing Ares, standing over his body and telling him. “Know this traitor; the one who killed you was known by the name of Artemis.”  
____________________________________________________________

She does not pick up a bow again. She trains in axe, sword, spear, and staff; anything but the bow. Some of her sisters find it within them to pick up the weapon of the goddess once more, but she is not among them.

She never doubts her new name, her new title. The soldiers in the Amazonian army only ever knew her as Artemis, and as the years go by, she wonders if the Hunters have forgotten Lyris. 

(They have not. They mourn the goddess as they mourn the rest of the fallen, but the name was hers to keep. Lyris never died, but was born anew.)  
____________________________________________________________  
The gods still speak. Antiope lives. What was once known is now uncertain, but Artemis has always put her trust in herself and her sisters. Whatever is coming, they will face it together, and they will prevail, past mistakes be damned.

The possible death of the princess stings at her heart. She remembers the child running up to her after training, begging Artemis for lessons. She would gently decline each time, but offer piggy-back rides to the village in compensation. Diana would sulk, predictably, but her moods never lasted long, and it usually was mere minutes before she was chattering away again, all smiles and sunshine.

Artemis swears to kill Ares if Diana is truly dead. He has taken too much from her, and gods be damned, if she is to be the first mortal to kill a god, so be it.  
____________________________________________________________

It is late at night when Artemis wakes suddenly. Why or how she can only guess at, but something in the forest calls to her, and she cannot resist such a siren song. She dons a tunic, straps a small sword to her waist, throws on her hunting boots and ventures into the night.

She moves as silently as a hunter, soft footsteps barely even rustling the fallen leaves. The call draws her deep, deep into the forest, into a clearing where the moonlight shines bright through night clouds, resting upon a rotting log.

She remembers her sister, and the stormy night before the final battle. She steps closer, moonlight wreathing her body, the forest welcoming her home.

A cool night breeze blows past her, rustling her hair, and she watches the moonlight dance over her fingers, an aura of silver.

She feels a presence she thought she would never know again and a slow smile appears on her face. Artemis turns her face to the moon and closes her eyes, letting a power she has long forgotten seep into her skin, into her very bones. It is a pale imitation of the sister she once knew, but she cradles the infant power in her heart, lets it take root in her soul.

“Welcome back sister.”

The moonlight dances around the new godling, and Artemis is no longer afraid for the future. She opens her hand and watches her sister’s power dance in her palm.

_Winds of change blow down old temples,_  
_To be built anew by bloodied hands,_  
_Rise by the awakened storm,_  
_And let the dead speak._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of the backstory came from my confusion as to why an Amazon might be named Artemis if she was indeed created alongside the rest of them while the gods still lived. This does deviate from canon quite a bit, but quite frankly the canon surrounding the Amazons when compared to what we know in the comics makes. Not a lot of sense so.


	2. you have burned as bright as the sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story of Orana, the archeress.

There is a ghost that wanders the lonely depths of the Underworld, a realm abandoned by its master’s death. There is a ghost, different from so many other spirits, that when asked what her regrets in life are, she will answer: “None.”

She speaks the truth.

This ghost was called Orana, and she burned as brightly as the sun for thousands of years, her light touching many, her memory never forgotten.

She was a great many things in her life; sister, warrior, savior. She devoted herself to those who proved themselves worthy of her heart.

The goddess Artemis called for sisters. Orana answered that call when the goddess proved herself worthy, becoming one of the goddess’s most trusted hunters. Queen Hippolyta called for trust in her rule. Orana trusted Hippolyta when the Queen proved herself capable of carrying the weight of the crown, becoming one of the Queen’s most steadfast archers. Princess Diana stood on the beach and did not call for any help at all, but Orana answered nevertheless. She leapt from the cliff face, sun burning bright behind her, racing to reach her sister. 

The Queen did not directly order the Amazons to protect her daughter. She did not need to. Any Amazon would die to save another, and all would die to save the child they had watched grow from infancy, the child who brightened the market streets as she raced through them in the early morning, the child who snuck away from her lessons to watch the warriors train. Loyalty ran in their blood, in their very bones. It would go against their nature to leave one of their own undefended.

It was with sisterhood drumming in her heart that Orana leapt from the cliff face without second thought. It was a bullet fired from a frightened soldier that silenced that drum. There is one final unwavering beat, and Orana knows no more.

When the battle is won, her sisters will cut her down from where she hangs on the cliff. They will mourn her and tell tales of her bravery. They will write epics of how she was the first to charge into the battle, caring not the consequences of her actions. The ones closest to her will tell the less heroic tales, of the times she sang away the nightmares of her sisters after the Rebellion, of the times her friends found her wandering the aisles of the library late at night, as she searched for new pieces of knowledge to learn, new stories to absorb. She was a warrior, they say, but she was a sister, a friend, a singer, a scholar. 

Her loved ones tell these stories, and with each word they learn to let their lost sister go, learn to treasure those moments they had with her, the moments that seem all too brief. They move on, but they do not forget.

The ever shining sun that hangs over the island will bear witness to all these events. It shines off her old armor, hung in memorial in the training rooms of the army, worn only by a ghost, and it burns over each of her sisters as they learn to live with her death.

Orana does not regret her death. She regrets those she left behind; her sisters, Hunters and Amazons alike. She knows her passing will have cut them deeply. A thousand years of life, ripped from her, ripped from them, too quickly to anticipate.

She wishes she had lived long enough to say goodbye. She wishes she had gotten more time in the sunlit world above. She wishes for many things, like all the dead do, and she knows it is unlikely she will ever get them. 

The Underworld is a pale shade of what it once was and the dead know it. They wander aimlessly, breaking into fits of rage or sorrow, cursing the living, cursing the world above. There is no king to guide them, no guardian to soothe their anger. Orana wanders the abandoned depths of the realm and finds the spirits of her sisters. Some are as lost as the rest of the shades, others retain their awareness of their lives. Some are missing altogether, and if Orana still lived perhaps she would have remembered their names but the memories of the dead fade with the dead themselves, and the names of the missing. Perhaps, with no guardian to watch over the dead, the Underworld cannot capture the spirits that cling so tightly to their former lives. Orana stays with those she has found, heals them, and helps them move on. Their spirits slowly fade from the Underworld, to where Orana does not know, but she hopes that they are at peace. She wonders what will become of her when it is her turn to fade. Death does not seem the way the legends claimed it would be, but Hades is dead, and the Underworld now dies too.

Time passes strangely in this dark realm, but all those imprisoned in its depths sense the twelve ghosts when they finally arrive. They burn so brightly it seems that the sun now shines in the Underworld, their spirits containing every emotion from anger to elation. One disappears in a flash, like a crack of lightning, leaving the air humming with energy. Another, form distorted as though being gazed upon from underwater, races into the crowd of ghosts, and this spirit flashes away like the one before it. A third, shining like moonlight, races up, away, disappearing from the dark depths of the Underworld, the caverns dimming with the loss of the glowing light.

The spirits gaze upon these forms in awe, and suddenly the air shifts. The cavern pulses with energy, and the walls entrapping the ghosts crumble away. A river appears behind the rubble, roaring with newfound life, and Orana can see a boat on the far side. The dead crowd to the river’s shores, clamoring for the chance to finally, finally move on.

Orana does not join them. There are still the spirits of the twelve that linger, as though confused, and she approaches the one that shines like the afternoon sun, harsh and gentle all at once.

_Let me help you._

The spirit gazes upon her as though considering. She sees flashes of memory, burnt into her eyes simply by gazing upon this divine ghost. _A sword to the back, betrayal, a traitor. Waiting for death, for the Underworld, but gods do not die, gods do not die, but gods do they wish they could. Trapped within the traitor, screaming a thousand years worth of betrayal. The traitor warps their powers, stolen from them in death, twists them to his own means until finally, finally, the daughter of Zeus summons what little divine power there is left in the world. There is a bolt of lightning and they are free, free, free._

Something passes between them, and the spirit holds out its hand. An unspoken vow. _Let us begin this cycle anew._

Orana takes the offered hand with the same courage that drove her to leap off a cliff into a slaughter. She regrets neither of these choices.

_Water fills her lungs, but she does not panic. The sun does not shine this deep into the ocean water but somehow she can still feel the warmth on her shoulders. The ocean floor reaches up, cradling her body like a mother cradles her child, and she lets the earth creep up, envelope her. The seawater fills her lungs and the earth covers her eyes and her unseeing eyes grow heavy. She lets herself drift away._

She awakens with a start on a sunlit beach, picks herself up from the sand, and smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Plot! Hopefully not too confusing? This is my first "published" writing piece and I can practically see my writing style evolving the more I write.
> 
> Menalippe and Antiope make a return in the next part, because I know how much y'all love the Sword Lesbians. These will be coming out more slowly, just because school is starting up, but I want to finish this series, its a huge learning experience for me and it really helps improve my writing.
> 
> Will also try to limit rambling in the notes in the future, hope you all enjoyed it!


End file.
